New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources 36. Date: August 2013 1. Historic Name: Oyster River Mill Pond Dam 2. District Or
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New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources Page 1 of 55 last update 13.01.2011 INDIVIDUAL INVENTORY FORM NHDHR INVENTORY DUR0018 Name, Location, Ownership 1. Historic name: Oyster River Mill Pond Dam 2. District or area: Durham Historic District (NR and Local) 3. Street and number: Oyster River near Newmarket Road (NH 108) 4. City or town: Durham 5. County: Strafford 6. Current owner: Town of Durham, Stephen Burns and Andrea Bodo Function or Use 7. Current use(s): Dam 8. Historic use(s): Dam Architectural Information 9. Style: Other: Ambursen-type Dam 10. Architect/builder: C.E. Hewitt/D. Chesley 11. Source: bronze plaque 12. Construction date: 1913 13. Source: bronze plaque 14. Alterations, with dates: repairs, fish ladder 1974-75 15. Moved? no yes date: N/A Exterior Features 16. Foundation: concrete 17. Cladding: concrete 18. Roof material: N/A 19. Chimney material: N/A 20. Type of roof: N/A 35. Photo #1 Direction: SE 21. Chimney location: N/A 36. Date: August 2013 22. Number of stories: N/A 37. Image file name: DUR0018_01 23. Entry location: N/A 30 UTM reference: zone 19, 343929E, 4777137N 24. Windows: N/A 31. USGS quadrangle and scale: Dover, NH West, 1:24000 Site Features Form prepared by 25. Setting: small town or village center, 32. Name: Kari Laprey, Lynne Monroe, after Lord and waterfront Bodo 2009 26. Outbuildings: none 33. Organization: Preservation Company, Kensington, NH 27. Landscape features: pond, river, 34. Date of survey: August 2013 stonewalls 28. Acreage: less than one acre 29. Tax map/parcel: 5/3-3 (and 6/9-1) New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources Page 2 of 55 last update 13.01.2011 INDIVIDUAL INVENTORY FORM NHDHR INVENTORY DUR0018 39. LOCATION MAP: N N Tax Maps 5 and 6 New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources Page 3 of 55 last update 13.01.2011 INDIVIDUAL INVENTORY FORM NHDHR INVENTORY DUR0018 40. PROPERTY MAPS: N New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources Page 4 of 55 last update 13.01.2011 INDIVIDUAL INVENTORY FORM NHDHR INVENTORY DUR0018 Methodology This NHDHR Inventory form for the Oyster River Mill Pond Dam was prepared for the Town of Durham and the Durham Historic District and Heritage Commission at the time of the dam’s 100th anniversary in 2013. The goal is to bring documentation of the Oyster River Dam up to date, in order to qualify for listing in the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places. A previous NHDHR inventory form for the Dam was submitted to the New Hampshire Division of Historic Resources in 2008, and revised in 2009, by Richard Lord and Andrea Bodo of the Durham Historic Association and Durham Historic District and Heritage Commission. A Determination of Eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places was made on 3/25/2009. Significance was under Criterion C for engineering. Additional information was requested for a determination of significance under Criterion A for historic associations and Criterion D for archaeology. The status of the dam as a contributing structure in the National Register listed Durham Historic District also required clarification. The following inventory form relies heavily on the Lord-Bodo document of 2009, with additional information to address the outstanding questions. Fieldwork and photography was completed in August 2013. The dam and adjacent shorelines were recorded. New photography meets current digital photographic requirements. Other views of the site in winter and at draw-down are included from various sources. A sketch map was created to show the locations of the dam and mill remains. Original prints of the 2009 photographs are on file at NHDHR. Historic photographs from the collections of the Durham Historic Association include an album documenting the construction of the dam in 1913. Research focused on the dam as a philanthropic project and memorial, and on the background of the engineers and builder. The Durham Public Works Department and the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) Dam Bureau inspection files provided documentation of maintenance and repairs. 41. Historical Background and Role in the Town or City’s Development: Introduction The Oyster River Dam or Mill Pond Dam was built in 1913 to replace an earlier timber dam. Construction of the new dam was funded by Mrs. Edith Congreve Onderdonk (1875-1919) whose family estate “Red Tower” bordered the north side of the Mill Pond. There had been a dam at the Oyster River Falls since the mid-1600s. Mills operated on both banks of the river. For many years, a sawmill stood on the north side and a gristmill on the south. By the early 1900s, the sawmill was gone and the gristmill used for limited purposes. When the old dam washed out in 1912, there was no incentive for the mill owners to rebuild. Mrs. Onderdonk’s philanthropy preserved the scenic pond and water power. She dedicated it in memory of her step-father, former Durham benefactor Hamilton Smith, who made his fortune as a hydraulic mining engineer. The new dam was built by local masonry contractor Daniel Chesley and New Hampshire College engineer Charles E. Hewitt, using a buttressed concrete slab dam type like that patented by the Ambursen Hydraulic company in 1903. The dam was owned by Mrs. Onderdonk and her heirs and the Jenkins family had the right to use its waterpower for their mill that stood on the south embankment. In the 1960s, the Town of Durham took over ownership and maintenance of the dam. Repairs were made in 1974-1975, along with installation of a fish ladder at the north abutment. The dam, with its waterfall visible from Route 108 and the scenic Mill Pond it impounds, are well-known local landmarks within the town. Geographic Context The Oyster River flows in a winding course, west to east through Durham to its outlet in Little Bay. The dam is located at a natural falls, the lowest falls on the river, above the head of tidal waters. New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources Page 5 of 55 last update 13.01.2011 INDIVIDUAL INVENTORY FORM NHDHR INVENTORY DUR0018 These were known as Oyster River Falls or Durham Falls. The Mill Pond impounded by the dam is upstream to the west and southwest. The dam stands immediately west of the Newmarket Road/NH 108 Bridge. Newmarket Road has always been a major north-south route through Durham. It connects to Main Street, which is uphill from and roughly parallel to the river. Properties on the south side of Main Street had land that extended down to the Mill Pond historically. Mill Pond Road was built along the north shore of the pond in the 1950s and the shoreline has been a small town-owned park since 1961, a popular site for viewing the swans and ice skating. The Red Tower estate that once bordered the pond now has twentieth century development separating the historic house from the vista it overlooked. The Red Tower mansion stands next to the Durham Community Church at 19 Main Street. On the west side of Newmarket Road near the dam and bridge are properties associated with the historic mill sites powered from the dam. The yard of 14 Newmarket Road (map/parcel 5/3-2) borders the north bank of the river. The house is set back and the nineteenth century sawmill was located near the shore. The small triangular 0.1-acre parcel (map/parcel 5/3-3) at the north end of the dam was divided from the adjacent property in 1913 and has been owned along with the dam since that time. On the south bank of the river, the land that was the former mill site (map/parcel 6/9-1), along with the right to the water-power from the dam, is under the same ownership as the houses on Newmarket Road to the south (map/parcels 6/9-2 and 6/9-3). 20 Newmarket Road is a modern residence that replaced a 1930s cottage and 22 Newmarket Road is an eighteenth century house. East of the bridge, below the falls, has always been a waterfront landing place along Old Landing Road. On the hillside above are the historic Three Chimneys Inn in the historic Frost-Sawyer House (17 Newmarket Road) and the smaller Yeaton-Gleason House (17 Old Landing Road). Both sides of the river east of the bridge form a town-owned park (maps/parcel 5/6-6 and 6/11-0). The historic Adams-Sullivan House (National Register listed 1973, a National Historic Landmark) is set back from the road (23 Newmarket Road). Main Street and Newmarket Road between Madbury Road and Laurel Lane form the Durham Historic District, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 and designated as a Local Historic District. Historical Background Timber Dams and Water-powered Mills, 1649-1912 The mills and the riverfront landing and boatyards, now at the southeast edge of downtown Durham, were once the focus of the village center. The first settler Valentine Hill was granted land, including the right to erect a sawmill, at Oyster River Falls in 1649 (Stackpole 1913:71). Hill’s home is now incorporated in the Three Chimneys Inn. Mills were located at both ends of the wooden dam. Over the years, the waterpower ran the sawmill and a grist mill, a tannery, blacksmith shop, monument works, shingle mill and cider mill. Oyster River Falls or The Falls was an early name for the community, part of Dover before the Town of Durham was incorporated in 1732 (Thompson 1892:172). At the upper end of the navigable Oyster River, a public landing was established in 1701.